ABSTRACT
The intense earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the north-east coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, did severe damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which went into meltdown as a result of loss of power and consequent unavailability of coolant water. This disaster, considered only second to the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in terms of the magnitude of any nuclear disaster, triggered a major revival in the Japanese anti-nuclear movement, especially in its opposition to nuclear energy generation in that highly earthquake- and typhoon-prone country. This chapter examines the revival of the anti-nuclear movement – actually a loose coalition of many small social movements, citizens’ groups, artists and NGOs – and analyses its subsequent decline as the immediate crisis began to fade from memory and when faced with a Conservative and pro-industry government. The chapter examines the rapid rise and slow decline of the anti-nuclear movement in terms of the sociology and politics of contemporary Japan, the difficulty of sustaining coalitions, the shortness of historical memory and the lack of access on the part of Japanese social movements to the real levers of power. The chapter concludes by arguing that, while the anti-nuclear movement has been ineffective in achieving its primary goal, it has on the one hand established linkages between hitherto separated groups of activists, such as artists, musicians and comic-book writers, and the more politically, socially and environmentally oriented social movements, and on the other has signaled lessons for Japanese social movements as a whole in indicating where the weaknesses and structural problems of social movements exist, and, by implication, what might be done to address such problems in the face of inevitable social challenges, and the lessons that citizens’ groups might learn from the responses to the March 2011 disaster.
